The President and Federal Department

The President of the United States is chosen in a national election for a four-year term of office, and may be reelected for a second term. He must be a native-born citizen at least 35 years old. His salary is $200,000 a year, and he also gets an extra $50,000 for expenses; but he must pay income tax on the whole amount. He receives up to $100,000 tax-free for travel and $20,000 for official entertainment, and is provided with a home and extensive office space at the White House.

As head of the Executive Branch, the President must execute the government programmers adopted by Congress. He recommends programmers and laws to Congress and requests money for federal government operations.

The President is elected directly by the voters (through state electors). In other words, the political party with the most Senators and Representatives does not choose the President. This is a major difference between the American system and those in which the nation`s leader represents the majority party or parties, that is parliamentary systems.

Under the US Constitution a sitting President may be removed from office before his term expires only by an impeachment process that begins with the House of Representatives. If upon sufficient evidence, the House drafts a «bill of impeachment», which must be approved by two-thirds of its membership, a trial in the Senate, with the Chief Justice of the United States acting as the judge and the Senators as the jury follows.

Within the Executive Branch, there are a number of executive departments. Currently these are the departments of State, Treasury, Defense, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labour, Health and Human Resources, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, and Education. The head of each department is appointed by the President. These appointments, however, must be approved by the Senate. None of these Secretaries, as the department heads are usually called, can also be serving in Congress or in another part of the government. Each is directly responsible to the President and only serves as long as the President wants him or her to. They can best be seen, therefore, as Presidential assistants and advisers. When they meet together, they are termed «the President`s Cabinet».

The court system usa

The third branch of government, in addition to the legislative (Congress) and executive (President) branches, is the federal judiciary. Its main instrument is the Supreme Court, which watches over the other two branches. It determines whether or not their laws and acts are in accordance with the Constitution. Congress has the power to fix the number of judges sitting on the Court, but it cannot change the powers given to the Supreme Court by the Constitution itself.

The Supreme Court consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices. They are nominated by the President but must be approved by the Senate. Once approved, they hold office as Supreme Court Justices for life. A decision of the Supreme Court cannot be appealed to any other court. Neither the President nor Congress can change their decisions. In addition to the Supreme Court, Congress has established 11 federal courts of appeal and, below them, 91 federal district courts.

The Supreme Court has direct jurisdiction in only two kinds of cases: those involving foreign diplomats and those in which a state is a party. All other cases which reach the court are appeals from lower courts. The Supreme Court chooses which of these if will hear. Most of the cases involve the interpretation of the Constitution. The Supreme Court also has the “power of judicial review”, that is, it has the right to declare laws and actions of the federal, state, and local governments unconstitutional. While not stated in the Constitution, this power was established over time.